I Thought We Knew They’d Be Bad

Yes, it was a disappointing performance from the Bills on Friday. Trent Edwards looked awful (shocker, right?) and the defensive front seven couldn’t tackle. There wasn’t a lot to be excited about, but I can’t figure out why everyone is running for the lifeboats. We’re not on the Titanic and Billy Zane is nowhere in sight. If anything, the ship is finally being steered back on course. It’s just going to take awhile to get back in the right direction.

The Bills finally have a management team in place that seems capable and has a plan. They can’t just cut everyone and turn over the entire roster like you can for your last-place fantasy football team. The right players that fit their schemes aren’t here yet. But they’re coming.

I’m not going to defend Edwards or his Bieber-esque haircut. He should have hit Steve Johnson on that bomb. And he panicked on the interception because his first checkdown, C.J. Spiller, was struggling to hold his block in the pass rush. Edwards is not a very good quarterback and he probably shouldn’t be starting on any NFL roster. However, he’s probably better than Ryan Fitzpatrick and Brian Brohm.

So maybe Buddy Nix does deserve some criticism for retaining all three of those guys. Fans crave fresh blood at the position like every week is Shark Week and Levi Brown doesn’t exactly cut it right now. It isn’t Nix’s job to pacify the fanbase and he and Chan Gailey are willing to give them one more look with the new offense and evaluate them to see if there’s anything they can work with. I’m willing to go along with that decision. Obviously they see some potential in each of them to be successful in the new schemes and we’ll learn more as the preseason wears on.

But will having one of these three start next season really set the team back that much? Barring any miracles, this won’t be a playoff team and Nix will be looking for new quarterbacks anyways. Gailey has shown he can turn crap into valuable metal when it comes to quarterbacks, so they decided to focus on fixing the positions that they could fix now.

It would be easier to finally stop fussing about who’s under center if the run game was in order. Fred Jackson and Marshawn Lynch going down is bad news. Only traveling to Washington with two-fifths of the starting offensive line didn’t help matters either. Spiller has the best chance of being the offense’s most effective weapon, but even the most explosive players can only do so much against 10 defenders in the box.

It’s going to be a “wait-and-see” type of season for the Bills. We have to hope we see some positives in these preseason games that can translate into the regular season. Those positives were tough to find against the Redskins (David Nelson comes to mind, as well as my favorite player from UB, Naaman Roosevelt). Hopefully some good things will happen in the Colts game on Thursday.

Don’t get riled up. The preseason has as much meaning as Adrian Brody’s acting career post-“The Pianist.” Thursday’s game will probably be just as painful to watch, but this is the hand we’ve been dealt. Don’t fold ’em just yet.

Dude, you better get off of Adrian Brody. LOL. Come to think of it, I couldn’t name anything of worthy beyond The Pianist. Anyway…

It’s the same old song with Trent Edwards, and that is very dissapointing considering the Stanford grad has ideal size for a QB. Not to mention he has had a running back the rest of the league would kill for AND now Spiller.

It won’t hurt me to wait and see for another year, after all I’ve been a Bill backer since 1990. Given Chan Gailey’s background, I think that’s the only brightspot this year. I can’t really say that Spiller is, because without a formidable offensive line, what can CJ do?